1. Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to a frameless glass door, especially a swinging glass door or a door which rests in stops, with a glass door leaf installed in a doorway and with hinges at the bottom and top or on the side.
2. Description of the Related Art
Glass facades, glass walls, and glass doors have become widely accepted not only for business entryways but also for offices and in the area of modern interior architecture. They offer an unimpeded view in both directions and contribute to a feeling of openness and to a connection between indoors and outdoors. Barriers are thus eliminated, and “threshold anxiety” is reduced in business areas.
Glass doors require fittings, especially hinges, which are usually made of metal and which must be attached to the glass door leaf by flanges at the top and bottom. For this purpose, U-profiles of metal are used, which grip the hinge-side corner areas and partially enclose and thus support the glass door leaf. The axes of rotation or mandrel mounts, which engage in mating parts in the floor or ceiling structure, are located on these metal profiles.
A special type of design is based on a multi-layer laminated glass pane. A flat piece of a hinge part is embedded in the laminated construction, so that the glass is not enclosed as usual between two cheeks of a U-profile but rather encloses the hinge part.
It is felt to be a disadvantage of the prior art that, although these glass doors are indeed frameless, they still have visible metal hinge parts.